OTTAWA — The RCMP will not lay criminal charges against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, over his controversial $90,000 payment to Sen. Mike Duffy. Instead, the file has now been turned over to the federal ethics commissioner.

The Mounties announced late Tuesday that they’ve concluded their investigation into Wright over the $90,000 cheque he wrote to Duffy to cover improper Senate expense claims.

“When the RCMP initiated the investigation (In June 2013) there were sufficient grounds to pursue the matter with regards to the offences of breach of trust, bribery, frauds on the government, as well as receiving prohibited compensation contrary to the Parliament of Canada Act,” RCMP Cpl. Lucy Shorey said Tuesday in a statement.

“Upon completion of the investigation, we have concluded that the evidence gathered does not support criminal charges against Mr. Wright.”

Wright’s lawyer, Peter Mantas, said that Wright was advised by the RCMP on Tuesday that it had concluded its investigation into his actions.

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Wright issued a statement through his lawyer, saying, “My intention was to secure the repayment of taxpayer funds. I believed that my actions were always in the public interest and lawful. The outcome of the RCMP’s detailed and thorough investigation has now upheld my position.”

A spokesman for Harper reacted Tuesday to the news with a short statement.

“We are pleased the RCMP has made progress in their work,” said Jason MacDonald, director of communications for Harper. “The Prime Minister’s Office will continue offering every possible assistance to the RCMP’s investigation.”

A spokesperson for Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson said the office has received confirmation the RCMP is no longer investigating Wright and that criminal charges will not be laid. The file has now been turned over to the ethics office.

Dawson is “reviewing the matter and will not comment further at this time,” Margot Booth, the commissioner’s spokesperson, said Tuesday in an email.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair reacted to the news by saying the RCMP’s decision doesn’t change the fact that the prime minister’s appointment of Duffy started the scandal.

“The root cause was Stephen Harper appointing someone as a member of the Senate from Prince Edward Island when he never should have done that because he wasn’t living in Prince Edward Island,” he said on CBC-TV. “Everything else flows from that.”

Mulcair said the development also won’t let the prime minister off the hook from opposition parties.

“He has refused to give clear answers to very clear, simple questions in the House,” said Mulcair. “I think Canadians still have a right to know exactly what went on, what the prime minister knew and when he knew it.”

In February, former Liberal senator Mac Harb and former Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau were charged with one count each of fraud and breach of trust, the first criminal charges to emanate from the Senate spending scandal.

The Mounties continue to investigate allegedly fraudulent expenses claimed by Duffy and former Conservative senator Pamela Wallin. Duffy, Brazeau and Wallin have all been suspended from the Senate without pay for alleged spending infractions.

The scandal blew wide open in May of 2013 when it was revealed that Wright had use his own personal funds to pay Duffy’s $90,000 so the senator could cover his improper Senate expenses.

He has refused to give clear answers to very clear, simple questions in the House. I think Canadians still have a right to know exactly what went on, what the prime minister knew and when he knew it.”

The scandal led to Wright’s resignation as Harper’s chief of staff. The prime minister later said Wright was dismissed.

Duffy has alleged that officials in Harper’s office told him to say he took out a loan from RBC to cover the repayment of $90,000 for his irregular housing claims.

Wright had joined the PMO from Bay Street in late 2010 and was highly prized within government as a smart and steady right-hand man for the prime minister.

When he resigned, Wright wrote that his actions “were intended solely to secure the repayment of funds, which I considered to be in the public interest, and I accept sole responsibility.”

He wrote that he did not “advise the Prime Minister of the means by which Sen. Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact.”

But the resignation sparked a scandal that lasted months, as opposition parties pressed Harper in the House of Commons — usually without success — for answers on how the fiasco occurred in his office.

The scandal got even hotter in November when the RCMP released documents as part of their investigation into Wright and Duffy. The documents included internal emails in the Conservative government that raised many questions about the conduct of the Tories as they tried to end the controversy involving Duffy’s expenses.

Duffy said that the Conservative party covered his legal bills after discussion of his expenses. He charged that Wright — who had paid the $90,000 toward Duffy’s housing expense claims — had also directed Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton to have his legal bills paid, amounting to a further $13,560.

Harper confirmed last fall in the House of Commons that the Conservative party had paid legal fees for Duffy, saying the party’s Conservative Fund “regularly does in fact cover the legal expenses of its members of Parliament.”

In December, for the first time, Harper spoke in an interview with Postmedia News about how he learned from Wright on the morning of May 15, 2013 about his payment to Duffy.

“I think, to be frank, my first series of reactions were probably in the realm of more stunned and disbelief,” said Harper.

“I, for the life of me, still can’t figure out – I don’t think anybody can figure out – why, for whatever reason, somebody would take this money of his own and give it to somebody who we all believed didn’t deserve it.”